


Nocturne

by mikawritesthings, Nausicaa_E



Series: The Micah Elsinore Cinematic Universe [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Cannibalism, Catharsis, Collab, Death Positivity, Don't worry they got better, Grief, Kinda, Loss of a Friend, No i dont care, Other, Suicidal Ideation, Werewolf Imagery, graphic depictions of suicide, kind of? this is mostly the two of us working out some Shit, non-explicit mentions of sex, ventfic, yes i know this doesnt match up with the timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:28:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22867135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikawritesthings/pseuds/mikawritesthings, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nausicaa_E/pseuds/Nausicaa_E
Summary: Jonathan Sims receives the statements of two best friends, and how their respective worlds changed after one of them died.
Relationships: Author Self-insert & Co-author Self-insert, Author Self-insert/Death
Series: The Micah Elsinore Cinematic Universe [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1722463
Kudos: 5





	1. To Die, To Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, this one's pretty different in tone from what I usually write. I should probably give some quick background:  
> A while back, Nausicaä and I drew ourselves as avatars of various Entities.  
> That quickly expanded into speculating about what might have driven us to those Entities. *That* expanded into wondering what effects those respective falls from grace would have on each other, and, well...  
> I've always vibed more with the End, and I realized that if I were to become an End avatar in the TMA universe, it'd likely be because of suicide.  
> So this is mostly Nausicaä and I working through my history of suicidal ideation.

ARCHIVIST

Statement of Micah Elsinore, regarding their successful suicide, and their resulting experience of the afterlife. Original statement given 11th October, 2018. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, head archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.

Statement begins.

ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT)

One thing they never tell you about dying is the regret you feel, just before you start seeing that light at the end of the tunnel. It’s a little like when you board a plane to return from a vacation, only to realize you didn’t get to do everything you wanted. There’s a poetic metaphor in there, I guess. Something about life only really being a vacation from death.

I had a laundry list of regrets, the day I killed myself. In case you want to know, it was by exsanguination. I felt like other methods would either draw too much attention or be unreliable. As for how the process would feel, I’d fainted a few times in my life, so I figured passing out from blood loss wouldn’t feel much different.

I realize this all sounds pretty gruesome. I didn’t exactly tell anyone then, so talking about my plans now that they’ve already happened feels… surreal. Still, I heard that you guys specialize in accounts of the supernatural, and I think I’m technically a ghost now. If you think that’s not supernatural, you can tell it to the bleached skeleton where most of my body used to be.

The process of dying--at least, death by blood loss--was not unlike falling asleep. It’s kind of funny, actually; my suicidal ideation used to manifest as exactly that. Less “I want to die” and more “I want to sleep forever.” I’d always believed that death would be just like a dreamless sleep. And during the last few months of my life, there was nothing I wanted more than to truly rest.

So when I finally died, you can imagine my surprise when I started to dream.

I dreamt that I was in an old-fashioned theater. There were the stereotypical red curtains and clamshell lights, the cutout set pieces, the painted backdrop. But I wasn’t in the audience. I was onstage.

I turned to look where the seating should have been. Instead, there was… space. A whirling, starry void, so very full and yet so very far away. It truly hit me then: I was dead. Unless some literal miracle happened, I would remain dead. And if Earth was out there in that void, I’d likely never see it again.

I felt like crying. The regret was there in full force; a thousand things I’d never get the chance to do. My history of severe anxiety disorders made me think I’d break down right there and then, but more powerful than the regret was the curiosity. In life, I’d dabbled in lucid dreaming. And if this was some sort of final dream, I wanted to see what happened next.

A clanging of gears and pulleys interrupted my thoughts as a giant set piece descended from the ceiling: a cutout crescent moon, dangling with softly glowing lanterns. There was… what I assumed to be an actress perched atop the moon. She was short, curvaceous, with a complicated updo of stark-white hair that contrasted with her deep brown skin. She was wearing a silky, sheer black robe over...what looked like a lacy bralette? Her whole look _screamed_ camp, sure, but what stood out to me the most was her mask. It was a simple half-mask over her eyes, shaped to look like a skull.

I know I’m describing her in a lot of detail, but you have to understand: even in death, I’m a _massive_ lesbian. I’ve always been drawn to campy feminine types, so I was already starting to feel flustered. Then I realized something.

I’m...well, I _was_ an artist by nature, and a storyteller. I always used to personify Death as a dark-skinned woman with stark white hair and a mask shaped like a skull. This actress’s costume was giving me, for lack of a better description, a sexy, campy version of the Grim Reaper herself.

She laughed. It was a soft, gentle laugh that nonetheless chilled me to my very core, like a light breeze on a winter night.

“You don’t really _want_ to die, do you?”

I was confused. Of course I _wanted_ to die, I told her, otherwise I wouldn’t have killed myself. But she just laughed again.

“No. You’re not ready to shed your costume yet, that costume of flesh and blood that all humans wear. You only want to exit stage right, then wait for your next cue.”

I didn’t understand why she was speaking in metaphor, but I got the point. I asked her: Was she calling me a coward?

“Your first question of three, then? Of course you’re not a coward,” she said. “You’re _human_ , darling. Even at your lowest, your self-preservation instinct remains intact.”

I noticed she had a feathery black fan in one hand. With a flick of her wrist, she closed it, then used it to gesture to come closer. So I obliged. As I walked up to her, and she stepped down towards me, she started to look me up and down like she was sizing me up. Her eyes were hidden by the mask, but I got the feeling that her gaze wasn’t _entirely_ sexual; rather, she was curious.

“I think I shall retire the theatre metaphor for now,” she said. “You are more of a sleeper who wants to wake than an actor who wants the show to go on.”

At this point, I couldn’t stop myself from asking: _was_ this a dream? A dying hallucination? She paused for a bit, thoughtfully tapping her chin with the fan.

“If this is a dream,” she said, “it’s awfully lucid. But…”

She leaned close to me, reached out to gently, tenderly touch my sternum with her fingertips. They were ice cold.

“You might as well enjoy it.”

Her hand moved to touch my chin.

“What do you like to do in dreams, darling?”

I was more than a little embarrassed. When I used to lucid dream, I’d often end up having sex. Then I realized I’d said that out loud. Typical, I guess. Dreams have no brain-to-mouth filter.

Death laughed that chilling laugh for a third time.

“There’s no shame in that,” she said. “I am not here to judge your desires.”

Then she kissed me. Her lips were just as cold as her hands.

“And I am not here to deny the wishes of the dead.”

We...had sex. I don’t want to describe that in much detail. I will say that, though it wasn’t exactly unpleasant, her body was just as cold as you’d imagine Death’s body to be.

Afterwards, she rose to her feet, adjusted her robe, and returned to her perch on the moon.

“What happens now?” I asked.

“That was your third and final question?” She looked at me. Behind the mask, I could tell she was staring right into my soul.

“Now,” she said, “you become a sleepwalker.”

The crescent moon began to ascend once again, this time into the rafters. I tried to ask her: when would I come back to the afterlife? Would I even come back at all? But Death just smiled at me.

“I’m afraid you’re all out of questions, darling.”

And then I woke up.

It was hard, adjusting to my existence as a ghost. Very few people could see me, and I hated having to watch my loved ones grieve without them even knowing I was there.

One of the few who _could_ see me was my best friend. But in the few weeks since I’d died, she had...changed. But I guess that’s a story for another day.

The strangest thing, though? When I hitched a ride on a plane across the Atlantic to come here, the last thing I expected was that every single one of your staff could see me.

ARCHIVIST

Statement ends.

Fortunately, though this statement sounds...rather implausible on paper, it was relatively simple to verify. We did, in fact, receive the written version of this statement from a young person who went by “Micah Elsinore,” and though they did appear relatively mundane, they...well...they indeed had a bleached skeleton where their torso should have been.

A follow-up interview with Micah should be easy enough, but… ideally, I’d like to hear this best friend of theirs’ side of the story.

End recording.


	2. Direct Action

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to Nausicaä, the co-author invite didn't "take," so...I'll be the one to post this chapter, I guess.

ARCHIVIST

Statement of Em Navarro, regarding her vigilantism. Original statement taken direct from subject, 17th December, 2018.

Statement begins.

EM

I wanna get this clear, yeah? I’m just here ’cause Micah told me it helped them, and at this point I don’t think I’m gonna have any difficulties if the pigs hear it. And you’re not getting more than half an hour; I gotta be at Buckingham Palace for ... [SOUND OF SOMEONE COMING UP WITH A BAD LIE] the tour.

ARCHIVIST

Your statement?

EM

Right, yeah. So. This starts … about a year ago, I suppose. Micah Elsinore was a good friend of mine, we’d been pals since orientation week, and they finally opened up to me about their crush on me. We dated for a few months; I broke it off; we stayed friends. After the summer break, we were better friends, ’cause we spoke each others’ languages well, yeah?

And, then … well. Then we weren’t really friends at all. We were just … they were a corpse, and I was grieving.

Micah says they already talked to you. I ain’t gonna get into their reasons. What I  _ am  _ gonna get into is how  _ fucking  _ helpless it made me feel. I was … not to put  _ too  _ fine a point on it, the butch one, and I was used to  _ helping _ them. They were in therapy! They had meds! They … they had  _ me _ !

And then they just …

Stopped.

Living.

That concept is so  _ anathema  _ to me. Like, I’ve had suicidal ideation in the past, but it’s manifested as wanting the fairies to come take me away, or, like … the bad end in a hentai comic [SOUND OF DISGUST FROM JON AS HE BEHOLDS WHAT HENTAI IS], where you’re alive, just without any agency. I’ll tell people that my concept of Heaven is endless stimulation, and Hell is endless boredom, and …

The thing that kept me from killing myself was the fear of “what if I’m  _ aware  _ that there’s nothing after death? What if it’s endless stagnation?”

And that’s how my grief manifested. I’ve never been good at denial, and, to quote the Incredible Hulk, “I’m always angry.” Which left … bargaining, ’cause there was no way in my eternally boring hell I was going to think there was nothing I could  _ do _ .

[EM PAUSES FOR A DRINK OF WATER.] (Sorry if that’s hell on your audio. Anyways.)

Micah’s reasons were their own. But  _ I  _ \-- me and my  _ logic _ , me and my  _ pattern  _ recognition, me and my  _ terrible awareness  _ of how  _ fucking helpless I was _ \-- could guess at the  _ root causes _ .

So I did some research. Started trying to figure out where in Portland I could fuck up the people who made other people feel unsafe. Took to taking the 19 bus downtown at night and wandering around places where vulnerable people gathered -- trans people, people of color, sex workers, homeless people. It sounds stupid in retrospect, but it was the only thing I could think to do at the time. Wait, and watch, and save  _ somebody _ .

Three nights later, I killed my first cop.

It’s funny how easy it was. Looking back, I … think I might’ve had help from a higher power. I saw a cop harassing someone, and I just … started walking towards him. He turned to look at me, and I would have flinched, but I kept walking. How had nobody grasped the secret? All that legal and physical power were just threat displays. Posturing from people who were used to getting what they want in order to secure their power.  _ I  _ was something different.  _ I  _ was someone who could smell what cops  _ really  _ were: wild pigs, grunting and squealing to try to frighten off predators. How  _ dare  _ these pigs try to mess with  _ me _ , Em Navarro, werewolf gimmick since age twelve? I advanced, and I could see his frightened breath steam out in the night air. I was  _ powerful _ .  _ I  _ was the one in control here. I flipped my pocketknife out and started whistling. The cop said something; I didn’t listen. I walked slowly, deliberately. He was confused, afraid, trembling, and I was  _ eating it up _ .

Of course, I forgot that boars have tusks, and I forgot that I wasn’t as all-powerful as I felt, and I forgot that scared cops go for their guns.

I got shot. It felt like  _ hell _ . I could feel something heavy in my chest, I could feel my breath growing ragged, I could feel the searing pain of torn muscle and shattered bone …

But I didn’t  _ care _ .

Looking back, I think the bullet fell out, and I just have a weird scar and no difficulty breathing, but I’m honestly not sure. It might still be in there. It doesn’t really  _ matter  _ to me, and it  _ certainly  _ didn’t back then. What mattered was that my body was still functional enough for me to leap at him. I had my knife in his eyeball before he could get off a second shot, and he toppled like a felled tree. I dripped blood in his face as he screamed. It was  _ delicious _ . I picked up his gun and put it in my hoodie pocket, and then went to town. He was like a deer in the headlights, too confused to stop the attack, as I tore through the seams of his bulletproof vest to start stabbing him in the chest.

Did … [EM PAUSES, TAKES ANOTHER DRINK.] Did you read Redwall as a kid?

ARCHIVIST

Er … yes.

EM

You remember the Bloodwrath?

JON

The … the crimson haze that came down over a badger’s vision as they entered a berserker frenzy.

EM

Other animals could feel it too. People forget that. But. That’s the best way I have to describe what I saw. Red mist and death and then the cop was dead.

It was odd. I didn’t feel any guilt or remorse about what I’d done. All I felt was a pragmatic worry about what I was going to do about the body.

And then it occurred to me that -- while I felt oddly  _ satisfied  _ \-- I’d still worked up something of an  _ appetite _ . [EM PAUSES, AUDIBLY GRINNING]

ARCHIVIST

You … you ate him.

EM

I ate his  _ body _ . Whether or not it was  _ him _ is a bit more  _ philosophical  _ than I have time for. Either way: I felt in  _ control  _ again. Like I was  _ doing  _ something. The fact that I didn’t remember much of the logistics of eating him was honestly a good thing. I was  _ doing good _ . I slept like a rock that night for the first time in a week.

There was a  _ bit  _ of post-prandial regret, though. I’d just eaten a cop. It felt  _ good _ , but not good  _ enough _ . Cops were pawns in the system, too. There were higher-ups. The whole  _ system  _ was rotten. I’d have to do a  _ lot  _ more research to take out the right linchpins.

Kept killing cops, though. Human meat honestly tastes  _ really  _ good, and what makes it even  _ better  _ is that oh-so-satisfying look of fear on their faces right before I bit in. I got to the point where I didn’t even need to carry a knife. My teeth and nails would just go  _ right  _ through Kevlar, fabric, skin, flesh … 

It was -- and this is a  _ big  _ statement, coming from me -- better than sex. [SOUND OF JON SIGHING AT ALL THESE HORNY AMERICAN AVATARS] I could talk your ear off about the similarities between the two -- Bakhtin would come up -- but it gave me the quick satisfaction of completing a task in a video game with the sense of nobility that came from sticking it to the man, topped off with the satisfaction of a basic, primal hunger.

I didn’t even question what I was doing until Micah showed back up.

I was in my dorm room, Zouting my clothes --

ARCHIVIST

Sorry, you were what?

EM

It’s a stain remover.  _ This statement brought to you by Zout! _ [JON SIGHS DEEPLY] Whatever was going on with my teeth and nails didn’t keep my clothes clean. I heard a knock at my door, and I went to open it -- it was wet enough outside that the brown stains on my clothes could be explained as mud. And … there was Micah.

I didn’t even question it. I just crumpled into a ball and started crying on the floor.

It’s funny, really. You probably think I’m some sort of unfeeling monster, after hearing me talk casually about murder and cannibalism. I honestly thought I was, at that point.

And it turns out, seeing my best friend in the world come back from the dead proved that the “unfeeling” part wasn’t true in the slightest.

We talked. They told me what had happened after they died. I told them what I’d started doing. They told me they’d had sex with Death herself, so they didn’t think they could be fazed by anything anymore. I congratulated them on getting the big titty goth GF they’d dreamed of, and then it hit me again that they were  _ back _ , and I cried and hugged them and cried some more about how I was going to stick with them, and …

I was a big sap, okay?

Both of us had been through some physical changes. I mean, I’d just started HRT that summer, but my breasts weren’t growing nearly as fast as my teeth and, let’s face it,  _ claws  _ were. Micah’s torso, meanwhile, was skeletal. Clean bones, too, like they’d been sitting out in the desert for years. Both of us are trans, both of us have projected onto monsters; neither of us was that torn up about it.

What was worse was that practically nobody could see Micah. It made continuing college an impossibility, and while they didn’t need to eat, they still had human need for companionship. I spent time with them, but they ended up using my laptop a lot, cruising the Internet; they talked online, but they also wrote a lot for r/nosleep, or watched ghost-hunting YouTube. It felt … obsessive, somehow, like how I kept going out for secret midnight bacon.

ARCHIVIST

[CONFUSED] Baco -- ah, pigs. I see.

EM

[AFFECTED VOICE]  _ Delicious human flesh! _ [NORMAL] Which got me thinking.

ARCHIVIST

[VAIN HOPE] About the value of human life?

EM

[LAUGHS] No, you dumb twink! The revolution will not be civilized! About the fact that they could  _ help  _ me. Nobody notices them? Perfect way to get information. We’ve had a few scares, but -- what’s some chump who sees them gonna do, kill them some  _ more _ ?

So, yeah. I’ve been moving onto bigger prey. The chase is  _ way  _ more fun, and I’m pretty sure nothing short of a silver bullet can stop me at this point. Still working up to a head of state, but, well, keep your eyes on the news!

ARCHIVIST

I. Ah. I suppose I shall.

EM

Smell ya later!

ARCHIVIST

You -- alright. [SIGH] Statement ends. A cursory Google search turns up several missing police officers in Portland over the past few months, and I can’t help but wonder if she has anything to do with the recent death of Jeff Bezos. Em Navarro has a wide smile that reveals sharply pointed teeth, and … Honestly, she and Micah Elsinore seem to have a functioning life partnership, and our last good monarch was Arthur. Recording ends.


	3. The Follow-Up Interview

[MUFFLED, UNINTELLIGIBLE]

ARCHIVIST

Right. [SIGH] We still need to get that follow-up interview with Micah Elsinore. Some of the implications of that statement are a bit...troubling. If Nathaniel Thorp had to gamble for his life, and Justin Gough had to repay his debt to the End in blood, then how did Micah manage to, to have  _ sexual relations _ with--? With er,  _ her _ , I guess.

I’m not sure how to go about asking that, though. From their statement, it sounded like they had no idea.

[AUDIO CORRUPTION, DISTORTED MUSIC FADES IN]

DEATH

Why not just ask  _ me? _

ARCHIVIST

[YELP OF SURPRISE]

DEATH

Hi there, archivist. I was in the area, thought I’d stop by.

ARCHIVIST

Y--you’re Death.

DEATH

In the...well, in the  _ absence  _ of flesh. But “I go by many names” and all that. If it helps, you could refer to me as...let’s say...Beatrice.

ARCHIVIST

You want me to interview you? I’d--I’d think you’d be  _ busy. _

BEATRICE

[LAUGH] Oh, I’m  _ incredibly  _ busy. But it’s no trouble at all. Unlike some people, I  _ can _ be everywhere at once.

Go ahead and ask me your questions. 

ARCHIVIST

Er-- 

BEATRICE 

You get three. 

ARCHIVIST 

You...do realize I could extract more out of you. 

BEATRICE

More information, maybe. But not more answers.

ARCHIVIST

I…

Why are you American?

BEATRICE

[AUDIBLY GRINNING] That’s an excellent first question.

Think about it this way: Death, mortality, or The End as you might call it, is something like a jewel. It has endless facets, only so many of which can be seen at the same time. I am one of those facets; I may be the End, but I am not the  _ only  _ End.

I am the facet of Death who presented herself to Micah Elsinore. Or, I am the facet of Death who they dreamt up, so to speak. Just like how Nathaniel Thorp dreamt that I was a skeletal monster who’d make him gamble for his life, and how Justin Gough dreamt that I was an unknowable, bloodthirsty horror. Micah Elsinore’s view of the End was-- _ is _ \--something to be loved and accepted, even if still feared.

I just think that, to them, the American accent makes me a bit more...approachable.

ARCHIVIST

That music… Chopin’s Nocturne op. 9, er, no. 1.

BEATRICE

Good ear. Or good  _ eye _ , as the case may be.

I do have kind of a soft spot for music. Humans were confronted with the inevitable march of time, and what did they do but  _ decorate  _ it?

ARCHIVIST

So...what exactly is the nature of your relationship with Micah?

BEATRICE

Hm. I suppose you could call me their girlfriend. Last time I  _ successfully  _ romanced a human, some might have referred to a Sapphic relationship such as ours as… “the best of friends.”

And “successfully” is very much the key word there. When the living try to woo Death, I’m sure you can imagine it goes rather poorly. Still, when Micah and I had our little rendez-vous, they were already quite dead.

The Sleepwalker has potential. Every mortal does, of course, especially if they begin to walk my path. But, despite having been touched by death--literally and figuratively--and despite a lifelong history of various neuroses, Micah still has a great capacity for optimism, and an even greater capacity for love. And they’re an artist. Just like I have a soft spot for music, I have a soft spot for those with the soul of a poet.

ARCHIVIST

When Micah came to the Institute, they were, er, wearing pajamas.

BEATRICE

[LAUGH] Yes. They followed through with the sleep metaphor.

ARCHIVIST

But… But not just pajamas. They were wearing a sleeping mask. They…

What do their eyes look like?

BEATRICE

Their eyes?

[MUSIC STOPS]

BEATRICE

[DISTORTED] Their eyes look just like mine.

ARCHIVIST

Wh--

_ Oh. _

[CLICK]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading whatever the hell this little fic was. It's been a fun exercise.


End file.
